The present invention relates generally to the field of electronic commerce and more specifically to techniques for dynamically providing promotions to online shoppers for items viewed or browsed by the online shoppers.
Electronic commerce has emerged as a multi-billion dollar marketplace for both consumers and businesses in recent years. A wide variety of products and services can now be obtained or purchased by online shoppers via online transactions using communication networks, such as the Internet. The World Wide Web (the “Web”) has further enabled users of the Internet to participate in commercial transactions from the comfort of their homes or offices. In the Web environment, information resources available via the Internet are typically stored in the form of hypertext documents called “web pages” which can be accessed by users of the Web. A web page may incorporate any combination of text, graphics, audio and video content, software programs, and other data. Web pages may also contain hypertext links to other web pages. Web pages are typically stored on computer systems, called web servers, coupled to the Internet. Each web page is uniquely identified by an address called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that enables users to access the web page.
Users typically access and view web pages using a program called a “web browser” which executes on a computer coupled to the Internet. Users typically access web pages by providing URL information to the browser, either directly or indirectly, and the browser responds by retrieving the corresponding web page(s) from the Internet. The retrieved web page may then be displayed on the user's computer. Examples of browsers include the Internet Explorer browser program provided by Microsoft Corporation, and the Netscape Navigator browser provided by Netscape Corporation, and others.
As a result of the blossoming electronic commerce industry, an increasing number of retailers are now using the Internet as a medium for selling products and services. Users or online shoppers may use a browser to access an online retailer's (or “etailer”) web site, browse web pages stored by the web site for items (which may be goods or services) offered by the etailer, select items for purchase (for example, by placing an item in a shopping cart), enter into commercial transactions with the etailer, and even pay for the purchased items over the Internet.
Due to the rapid increase in the number of etailers transacting business over the Internet, the success or failure of an individual etailer generally depends on the etailer's ability to acquire and retain customers online at viable costs. However, one of the biggest concerns nagging etailers today is the high cost associated with online customer acquisition. Presently, it is estimated that on the average only 5% of all users visiting a web site select items for purchase, and only about 1-2% complete the purchase transaction. The aforementioned statistics clearly indicate that in order to be successful, etailers will have to significantly improve the customer acquisition percentages while reducing the costs associated with customer acquisition procedures. Additionally, while there are several etailers who sell complementary items, and who could benefit from sharing their customers, the tools to facilitate this cross-pollination of customers to increase profitability of the etailers are not presently available.
Thus, there is a need for techniques which allow etailers to acquire customers at sustainable costs. It is desirable that these techniques allow cross-pollination of customers to further improve profitability of the etailers.